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business of art Arts management degree celebrates 30 years BY SALLY ACHARYA
Photos courtesy of Jeff Watts, Jim Saah and Arena Stage
From top: Marissa Hoechstetter now works at the Smithsonian; an enthusiastic audience at the Strathmore, five of whose staffers have ties to the AU program; the Kennedy Center, which also has AU connections; Renee Littleton, left, at work at Arena Stage.
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Laura Brower loved art, but was more at home in a museum than an art studio. Jen Buzzell wanted to be involved in music, but a brief stint as a teacher showed her the classroom wasn’t for her. Marissa Hoechstetter enjoyed teaching art, but found herself amazed by the lack of art resources in the schools and wanted to do something about it.
All of them found their niche in the arts through AU’s graduate program in arts management. Now in its 30th year, the master’s program is widely recognized as one of the leading programs in its rapidly growing field, attracting students who dream of starting their own theatres, working in museums, and having a life in the arts. They may not be the ones in the spotlight. But they’re the ones who will write the grants, oversee the budgets, and make sure that when the moment comes to shine the spotlight, an appreciative audience will be there to applaud. Founded in 1974, AU’s arts management program was one of the first master’s degrees in the field, born just after the National Endowment for the Arts was founded and the arts had begun to blossom. New theatres and art spaces were cropping up everywhere, but skilled professionals to manage them were in short supply. AU stepped in to fill the need. The first class in arts management included Gail Humphries Mardirosian, then a master’s student in theatre and now chair of the Department of Performing Arts, College of Arts and Sciences. “It turned out to be one of the most important courses I ever took in my life,” says Mardirosian, who teaches one of the courses in the program. “At the time, my focus was as a director and actress, but I started to think of management issues—development issues, writing grants. There are crystalizing moments in your life, and it was a crystalizing time in my life, to be exposed to those things. Right now, all of my work in education depends on funding through grants.” Also in that first class were two other women who would become influential in Washington theatre: Molly Smith, artistic director of Arena Stage, and Joy Zinoman, founder of the Studio Theatre. “It was actually quite visionary,” Mardirosian says of the program, which came on the scene at the start of an arts boom. In 1965, there were 58 orchestras nationwide; by 1990, there were 1,000. The 37 dance companies grew to 250, and opera companies quadrupled. Growth has continued; the 400 theatres of 1990 are now closer to 1,000. AU’s program has a remarkable 100 percent placement rate, with many placed before they graduate. “I think it’s the reputation of the program and the fact we really do train highly competent professionals,” says program director Brett Crawford. Renowned as one of the best in the country, AU’s program accepts only 20 to 25 percent of its applicants. The demanding 45-credit hours tend to attract students with several years of experience in the arts, such as Brower, who had worked at the historic Biltmore Estate in North Carolina, and Buzzell and Hoechstetter, who taught music and art. “We do require a background that’s not just in the audience,” Crawford says. Josh Stoltzfus had spent four years in the music business when, he says, “I started to get burned out on what I was doing, realized that a lot of my favorite people that I worked with were the nonprofit presenters . . . I started thinking maybe I should be working on that end of things.” Renee Littleton was searching for a way to work behind the scenes. “While I enjoyed performing onstage, I was fascinated and thoroughly enjoyed the behind the-scenes aspect of the performing and visual arts. I wanted to learn how arts administrators developed strategies to promote their productions and create sustainable arts organizations,” says Littleton, now the associate director of marketing for Arena Stage. Cathy Vass brought eight years of experience in design. “I wanted to focus more on the fine arts,” she says, “but I also wanted to use, not lose, my skills as an organizer, manager, [and] boss.” She is now at the National Endowment for the Arts. The program not only bolsters management skills through courses in business administration and public administration, but includes 6 credit hours in the arts to help its students keep their focus on why it all matters. “We do make them think the big questions,” Crawford says. “We try to make it a pure blend between theory and practice. The goal is a well-rounded arts manager.” The students learn how to write budgets and seek grants, but the program also nurtures something else: their passion for the arts. “We get people who really love the arts,” Crawford says. Brower, who combined the program with a master’s degree in art history, is full of praise for the program’s “amazing” faculty. Crawford and Robert Goler are the only faculty appointed to the department full time, but faculty in many departments teach courses in the field, and leading professionals serve as adjuncts. “They work really, really hard for students,” says Bower, who is now director of communications for Cultural Tourism D.C. “They’re very committed, both inside and outside of the classroom. I think they were mentors as much as professors.” Buzzell agrees. “Since the field of arts management as a profession is relatively young, the amount of material written about it—studies, journals, books—is pretty small. That puts the onus on the professors to really pass along [the knowledge] . . . The professors have to be top notch, and we are lucky that [they] are,” says the one-time music teacher, now director of marketing and press at Strathmore in North Bethesda, a job that grew out of one of the two internships the program requires. As for Hoechstetter, the former art teacher had an internship at the National Endowment for the Arts and is now a development specialist at the Smithsonian. Before she decided to attend AU, she said, “I compared the program with others across the country and didn’t feel that any held a candle to this program in the ability to deliver interesting internships and careers afterwards.” The arts management program will mark its 30th birthday with an Apr. 9 celebration including tours of the Greenberg Theatre and Katzen Arts Center, which will soon house the program and its new resource center. The move will make a much-appreciated birthday gift for a program that has matured over the course of its 30 years into one of the best in the nation. As Crawford says, “We’re proud of what we do here.” |
